A story of Yemen's History right from the Kitchen

Menu

Bint Alsahn (The plate’s daughter) بنت الصحن

The most popular dish in Yemen, in one word,is Bent Al-Sahn ,or the “beauty of the table” as some would call it.

I contemplated writing on Bint Al-Sahn in the very first articles in YemenKitchen, not because there is nothing else to say beside it super popular and it’s so delicious, but because it is one of the most obvious choices to write about, when it comes to food in Yemen.ts very similar to Boreck in its preparation, only its served plain with no filling,only honey on top.

Bint Al-Sahn is usually served when having guests, or on Friday lunch when the bigger circle of family meet. It’s a dish made of buttery golden layers of thin dough, and honey, and garnished with (­حبة البركة ) )Nigella seed) that’s it.

Bint al-Sahn is simple in its ingredients, its preparation however can be little tricky since you need to make those layers of dough from scratch. Once you master how to open up the layers and place them on top of each other in the dish, everything else is easy.

How this dish did became so irresistible, and held a very unique place in the Yemeni table?!

Serving Rituals

Bint Al-Sahn is classically served in the middle of the lunch, and not towards the end of it, which is surprising for people who are not accustomed with Yemeni food traditions. The more high status your guests are, the more expensive is the honey served with it .To honor the guest the head of the house will pour the honey in circular motion towards the guest side and to the middle of the dish, generously, so he/she won’t feel shy to take more of it.

The guest, of course, knows that the host do that to honor them, so he must always try to stop them from pouring honey more than needed. It’s a delicate­ welcoming and thankful gestures done between the host and the guest to show appreciation and respect.

For me Bint Al-Sahn was always associated with big family weddings that I attended with my mom and siblings. I was a shy kid, and I never enjoyed going to big lunches where the list of guests could go to hundreds. Eating bint Al-Sahn was the only thing that would make me stay patiently in the event, waiting until the gathering is finished and get back home. This kind of events were usually in the house of the event. It’s still a mystery for me how they were able to fit this amount of people in one place. Food would all be laid on the ground on a plastic fabric, with no chairs so they could maximize the space for more people to fit in and eat, more like you are in a picnic trip with few hundreds of people!!:) Of course,2/3 of them are somehow related to you in a way or another,Big Fat Yemeni wedding style.

. Bint Al-Sahn will always be my secret wedding rescuer, what is yours?

Preparation
Put all the dry ingredients together, make a whole in the middle and put the egg, and cooking oil in it and start kneading.

Add milk carefully and keep kneading until the dough starts to hold up and all the sides are cleaned up. Keep kneading for 10 to 12 mints.

-The dough will be soft,drizzle few drops of oil, put it in a plastic
wrap in a warm corner in your kitchen with no air drift towards it for about 30 minutes.
-The dough should multiply in size .Now prepare the surface area for your dough by sprinkling white flour on a clean dish or on your kitchen counter top.

– Cut it equally to 10 to 12 equal pieces and put them on the flour surface. Put some butter on the surface of the dough pieces so they stay moist and don’t dry up.
-Again cover them up with a plastic wrap and wait for 10 to 15 minutes, you will notice their size is doubling again. In the mean time you can start heating up your oven up to 350F.
Prepare the dish by putting some drops of the- butter+ghee- mixture into it and wipe it all over the dish

Now start by pressing the dough pieces with your fingers in circular motions, they should be soft and easy to work on.

Take the first dough and start moving it between your hands in a circular motion, more like how the infinity sign∞ looks like. The dough will start getting larger and thinner , very similar to the Boreck dough. Put the dough quickly into the dish.

Drizzle the ghee and butter mixture and start revolving the dish to both sides so the butter get to most parts of the dough.
-Continue this process for the rest of the dough pieces. Until you create all the layers needed for bint al-sahn.
Garnish the top with Nigella seed,(حبة البركة) put in the oven until it become golden from the top. Usually take 35 mints.

Right out of the oven

Serve when butter is still oozing and drizzle honey on top.
I didnt have the chance to cut it into traingles and make pretty pictures this time.Since the plate was finished , literally, seconds after serving!

Aluminum or stainless steel dishes are great as the dough sticks to it.I believe Pyrex would work as well as long as it’s round and only few drops of ghee is drizzled so layers can stick to the dish but I haven’t tried with Pyrex before :).. Let me know how the recipe works for you;)

A big thank you for this blog ! (sorry for my english, I’m french…)
I lived 8 years in Yemen… I’ll always love this such beautiful country, yemeni and… their cooking !
So thank you very much for these recipes !

My mom used to make this recipe as we grew up in Sana’a. It was always a favorite but also very labor intensive as she made it all by hand. I’d looked for a recipe for Sabaya for a long time but never found it till someone linked me to to this via Facebook. I’m actually in the process of making it with my 5 year old girl right now and I’m hoping that I will get it right.